more like new comic Sunday. with this time change i woke up at 8am and headed to a coffee shop with a friend by noon, studying. yes, on a sunday. (thumbs down) but as a break i was looking up new comics out and stumbled upon Zero G (zero gravity). i've been reading a few reviews on it and i've seen the main line "space race" consistently. thoughts?

Speaking of Adventure Comics Special #1: Guardian (wow, what a mouthful!), who is this Pere Perez guy? His art is excellent! And that coloring kicks serious ass! Good stuff. DC should snatch that dude up.

Lecko, what's the status with Batman RIP? It seems forever since we've had a new issue. The fuck, I say.

Also, I am entering a phase of Skrull fatigue. What is weird though is that every time I pick up a Marvel comic with a Skrull in it, most likely I end up digging the hell out of the story (in this weeks case Nova), but christ... enough already.

burlivesleftnut wrote:Lecko, what's the status with Batman RIP? It seems forever since we've had a new issue. The fuck, I say.

Also, I am entering a phase of Skrull fatigue. What is weird though is that every time I pick up a Marvel comic with a Skrull in it, most likely I end up digging the hell out of the story (in this weeks case Nova), but christ... enough already.

Because comics have disproportionally risen in cost compared to inflation. For proof consult Rich Johnston's column from October 27th.

My cri de coeur was passionate but not entirely accurate. I know why I spend so much money. It's because those three comics on my list for the week will be overbalanced by four or five comics plus a trade paperback next week and terribly overbalanced in January by the Rorschach movie figure at USD 100.

Getting past that, though, Johnston's analysis is interesting but invalid. Yes, the price of comics has outstripped inflation by far. But Johnston fails to take into account factors that affect overall revenue, such as advertising space and proportionate sales. Sales are part of the vicious circle that affects cover prices - lower sales across the line means higher prices are needed to stay profitable and pay creators reasonable page rates. Higher prices mean an inevitable loss of some readers; shrinking sales from the loss of those readers eventually force another price hike. This is not the 1940s, when a typical issue of Captain Marvel Adventures sold more than a million copies and the loss of ten thousand readers might worry a publisher slightly. With some DC and Marvel comics selling 15,000 copies, even a drop of a few hundred readers can doom a book. The loss of a book changes the dynamic of the company. And that can lead to bigger changes, some resulting in higher prices.

The vicious circle also is a function of advertising sales. I'm looking at Action Comics #392, from September, 1970. It's a 32-page comic (plus covers) and has 23 story pages, a letters page and two pages of house advertising/survey/contest. It also has nine pages of outside advertising, including the inside covers and back cover. The price is 15 cents. Action Comics #868, from September, 2008. is, again, 32 pages plus covers. We get one less page of story, 22. Seven pages of house advertising and news. Six pages of outside advertising, and one of those is from DC Direct. Price: $2.99

With another three pages of outside advertising, how much less would that standard-format DC comic cost? How much less would IDW's Spike: After the Fall ($3.99) cost if IDW took more outside advertising? 22 story pages, one outside ad on the inside back cover and 10 pages of IDW house ads. Now, advertising sales depend upon companies believing readers want to purchase the advertised good and services, but in the age of The Dark Knight and hot sales of Angel DVDs, doesn't anyone want to push their stuff in comic books?

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." -- Noam Chomsky

This is a relatively light week for you burl. I am on the fence about Batman: Cacophony. I may read through it at the store and decide then. I think I might add GA/BC when the new creative team takes over. I just can't stand Judd Winnick and the idea of a SIMPSONS writer on a mainstream superhero book has me intrigued.

In response to burl's question, the new comics came out TODAY rather than Wednesday. It will shift back to normal next week.

And now, prepare yourself for the first NCW of 2009! I recently decided to stop buying more "superhero" comics from the Big Two. All I am getting now is the Final Crisis books and Green Lantern. The rest of my pull list is indie books and vertigo books. I will probably download or read the DC books at the store, but I just find that they don't hold as much interest for me as of late. Especially when I shell out $3 a piece for only an average book (something happening way too often lately). So, only the best of the best gets bought from now on.

The Big Two do love their tie-ins. How has Angel After the Fall progressed burl? I stopped reading it 5 issues ago.

It's okay, but I am looking forward to the creative change coming up. It's all a bit messy, but some of the revelations regarding Angel have been cool. It turns out TPTB want him alive as ANGEL (not Angelus) to bring about the apocalypse. But that's been about the only cool thing going on.

And I actually like the tie-ins... especially at Marvel. Over there, there is a real feeling of a shared universe and Secret Invasion actually did launch the Marvel U in a cool new direction. Fanboys always complain that the big events never have lasting changes, but Marvel (since House of M) has done a really good job of framing a nice epic storyline. And now that they are about to tie the earth bound heroes into the cool stuff that has been going on far off in the cosmos I am psyched. Guardians of the Galaxy is a fantastic series, so I am looking forward to them getting some cross over-love.

The DC stuff is a little less integrated, but I am still enjoying the tie ins to FC, but everything is so delayed it's irritating, and I still have no idea how FC 6 tied into Batman RIP. They are both written by the same writer but for fuxxake there are like two totally different conclusions. I wish someone would come along and explain how RIP fits into FC continuity.

I won't be able to read FC #6 for until next weekend probably. I started a new job and school started up so I get to my comic shop about once every two weeks now.

I imagine, however, that fairly soon we'll get a Morrison tell-all interview, which I will be REALLY excited to read. So much to cover. Delays, re-writes, etc. I personally have enjoyed Final Crisis immensely and I found RIP to be a crazy, but fun ride.

As for the MARVEL tie-in thing, it is interesting because something Didio said in his 20 questions segment at newsarama kind of echoed that statement. He was talking about how DC is a bunch of characters from different universes that were jammed together into one universe/continuity whereas Marvel has characters that all FEEL like they are from the same universe. Thus, it is easier to form cohesion in that respect. Now, this obviously doesn't let anyone off the hook at DC for a failure to unify the universe, but it does hold true for the most part I believe.

Personally, I am not a fan of the shared universe. If someone wants to cross over than it should be at the creators discretion. When the company tries to force continuity it forces me to have to care about continuity and that pisses me off. There should be loose rules, perhaps, to give the outward appearance of continuity but that is all. And it only makes matters worse when you preach how your company wants cohesion and then you allow something like Countdown to occur and Death of The New Gods. Call a spade a spade, you know?

When you compare the DC Universe and the Marvel Universe, one of the great things about the Marvel Universe is that they all came from one place, and they grew outward organically from one spot. With the DC Universe, we had our own universes, not to mention characters from various companies pushed together trying to build one world. The goal for us has always been to try and make that one world truly is one world, rather than the world of Captain Marvel, the world of Charlton or even, Kirby’s world.

So that’s one of the big things that we’re trying to do with Grant and other creators working on what you described as moving things around and shining them up – you’re absolutely right. That’s exactly what we’re trying to do, with an eye on a cohesive whole when they’re done.

Personally, I think in a situation where there is a big event happening, writers and editors WANT to be a part of it in hopes of increasing sales. I think Dwayne McDuffie on JLA is a perfect example of this. That title has no cohesion and just jumps from one lame storyline to another lame event tie-in. The dude should be sacked.

burlivesleftnut wrote:Personally, I think in a situation where there is a big event happening, writers and editors WANT to be a part of it in hopes of increasing sales. I think Dwayne McDuffie on JLA is a perfect example of this. That title has no cohesion and just jumps from one lame storyline to another lame event tie-in. The dude should be sacked.

In regards to JLA, I am not sure if it is Dwayne's doing or editorially mandated. My gut tells me it is the latter. Still, some DRASTIC changes are needed for that title. I have this conversation nearly weekly at my LCS. I HATE how JLA reacts and responds to major events instead of being the impetus for them. Morrison's run is the perfect model. All of those arcs could have been major events. They were huge. The JLA shouldn't be small. The events that they are called in to combat should be something that could only be handled by that group of heroes.

Amazo hardly counts. More than I want to see McDuffie leave, I want to see Ed Benes leave. At least have him stop doing the covers. There are only so many ways to depict the team incapacitated. I mean, honestly.

I was curious about something and I figured this would be the place to ask. When you subscribe to the Marvel Digital Comics service do you get new issues or are they all old back issues? I'm just curious about how that all works if anyone knows. I see they have a large of amount of back issues but given what's available to download now by people who scan I was wondering how the new issues work.Thanks!!

BlueHawaiiSurfer wrote:I was curious about something and I figured this would be the place to ask. When you subscribe to the Marvel Digital Comics service do you get new issues or are they all old back issues? I'm just curious about how that all works if anyone knows. I see they have a large of amount of back issues but given what's available to download now by people who scan I was wondering how the new issues work.Thanks!!

They don't have new issues. And shhh, we don't talk about downloading here.

BlueHawaiiSurfer wrote:I was curious about something and I figured this would be the place to ask. When you subscribe to the Marvel Digital Comics service do you get new issues or are they all old back issues? I'm just curious about how that all works if anyone knows. I see they have a large of amount of back issues but given what's available to download now by people who scan I was wondering how the new issues work.Thanks!!

They don't have new issues. And shhh, we don't talk about downloading here.

The Big Two do love their tie-ins. How has Angel After the Fall progressed burl? I stopped reading it 5 issues ago.

Um, okay. You need to catch up. After some confusion, the story arc ended brilliantly. Really the latest issue made it all make sense and has a wonderfully twisty story that really reminded me of the good old days of the TV show. I look at it this way, the entire series so far could have been done in a two part episode of the show. They dragged it on way to long, but the end result is worth it. GO TEAM VENTURE... ER I MEAN 'ANGEL'!